Empire of Lies

73

Kolschitzky made for a surprisingly passable version of Rasheed.

Both men were of around the same height and build. They were both dark skinned and wore their beards in a similar fashion, and Rasheed’s layers of dress—the richly textured robes, the elaborate turban—left very little of him actually visible.

In the dark of night and only illuminated by the flicker of camp torches, Kolschitzky could easily pass for Rasheed. He’d also heard enough of the man’s voice and manner of speech to be able to mimic him should he need to speak. Passing himself off for others was, after all, a talent he’d put to good use already.

For his part, Kamal slipped on the outfit of the guard that Taymoor had strangled. It was the only one that wasn’t drenched in blood. He and Kolschitzky got dressed after dragging the bodies into a far corner of the huge tent, pulling back the layers of thick Persian carpets that covered the ground there, positioning the bodies flat and next to each other, digging up just enough soil to lower them and flatten the edges around them before covering them up with the carpets.

He didn’t want to leave Nisreen next to them. Instead, they half buried her under the carpets across the tent from the others. Before covering her, he gave her one last kiss on the forehead, holding there for a long moment.

“I’ll finish it for you, hayatim,” he murmured. “And once it’s done, I’ll come back and give you a proper burial.”

He took one last glance at her forearms. He had misgivings about the risk of leaving her there, given the tattoos. If she were found, the incantation would be vulnerable to discovery, even if whoever came across it wouldn’t understand what it was without trying it. But Kamal couldn’t face dealing with it now. It was all too raw in his mind, and time was pressing. He’d deal with it when they returned, after it was all done.

They pulled the carpets back over her, too. Once they were done, the slight rises in either corner of the tent were barely discernible.

The two men crept up to the entrance curtains of the tent.

“Ready?” Kamal asked Kolschitzky.

The Pole took a reassuring feel of his scabbarded, jewel-encrusted yataghan, then his expression morphed into a powerful imitation of Rasheed’s intense frown, and he barked, “Gidelim.”

Let’s go.

Kamal nodded his approval, sucked in a deep breath, and stepped through the curtains.

He emerged outside the tent. It was pitch-black save for the faint light coming from a few torches set up around the edges of the enclosure’s perimeter. The captain wasn’t around, but three janissaries stood guard by its gate, at ease and talking. They were far enough away that it would be hard for them to be able to make out the specific features of Kamal’s face.

“The pasha’s horse. Saddle it up and bring it here, with another for me. Quickly,” he yelled out to them, using the precise diction that Kolschitzky had taught him.

The men looked over, taken aback by the late-night order. Rasheed wasn’t known to ride off in the night. In fact, Kamal had read in accounts of the siege that he rarely left the camp.

“Move,” Kamal ordered insistently.

The men scurried away and soon came back with two horses. The first of them, evidently Rasheed’s, was a magnificent animal—slender, long-backed, with sloping quarters and long, muscular legs. Its black coat had a metallic sheen that shimmered in the light of the torches and was topped by an opulent velvet saddle adorned with precious stones and gilded embroidery and linked to gold-plated stirrups.

The attendant janissaries quickly positioned Rasheed’s horse outside the tent’s entrance and placed a small stepped platform alongside it. Turning away from the men, Kamal disappeared back into the tent, then reappeared holding open the tent flap from which Kolschitzky stepped out. The janissaries dropped their heads in respectful bows. Wearing a scowl and walking with purpose, the Pole said nothing. Instead, he let Kamal help him step up the platform and climb onto the horse. Kamal then mounted his own, only giving the man holding its reins a stern nod. Then they both trotted out of the enclosure without uttering a word.

None was needed. Rasheed was the sultan’s valued advisor, his philosopher-royal. To the janissaries, he was royalty. They were there to serve, not to question—especially not when it came to a man who had an aura of mystique and a reputation for unconventional methods.

Rasheed’s enclosure was at the rear of the camp, next to the grand vizier’s compound. Both sat on high ground, from which Kara Mustafa and Rasheed could observe the progress on the bastions, safely out of reach of the defenders’ cannon. Being at the rear of the camp meant Kamal and Kolschitzky didn’t have long to travel before they had left the long rows of tents behind and were galloping away into the darkness.

Once the camp was well behind them, Kolschitzky slowed his horse to a trot and got his bearings. Even in the pale light of the moon, the narrow Vienna River had a clearly discernible glow that snaked away into the woodlands.

“We’ll follow the river to Purkersdorf; then we’ll veer north and follow the Gablitzbach up into the hills. As long as the moon doesn’t act shy on us, it shouldn’t be too hard to stay on course.”

“Just get us there,” Kamal told the Pole. “I’ve lost too much to fail here.”

Kolschitzky held his gaze. “I’ll get you there, and we’ll see this through. If only so you’ll have no excuse but to explain what the hell is going on.”

Kamal nodded. “It’s a deal.” Then he gave his mount a squeeze with his calves and set off.

They rode through the night.

They crossed the scrubland before climbing up the uninhabited, heavily wooded hills, skirting the valleys that cut across them and snaking through forests of beech and oak crisscrossed by streams. They were always on alert in case they came across Ottoman irregulars like the ones that had captured them but knew that those raiders tended to lie still at night. They hoped to steer clear of advance Christian forces, too—dressed as they were, they couldn’t risk wasting time proving their intentions to any of their reconnaissance patrols.

Dawn was still hours away by the time they navigated the ridges that topped the hills and began descending the gentler slopes toward Tulln. The farther down they rode, the safer they felt, but they were still advancing cautiously, their eyes scanning the night for any sign of life. Then they were on the plains, riding faster now, a soft yellow glint backlighting the contours of the hills they’d left behind.

The flicker of distant bonfires acted as beacons to draw them in during the final hour of their journey. They knew it could only be the army of Christendom, and it wasn’t long before they were intercepted by a patrol of Bavarian horsemen. Kolschitzky stunned them by pulling off his turban and speaking to them in perfect German while Kamal watched in silence. The Pole did know what to say. After being relieved of their sabers and having their hands tied behind their backs as a precaution, they were escorted back to the Christian encampment.

Even with darkness still trouncing the encroaching light, the epic scale of the army the pope had assembled was unmistakable. An endless swarm of troops—Austrians, Bavarians, Saxons, Franconians, and Poles—was massed outside the small town, a sea of tents arrayed across the wide plains that stretched back to the bank of the Danube. And at the center of it all stood the grand compound of its leader, the king of Poland.

The man Kamal had come all this way to see.

The easier part was done.

The battle that followed would decide the fate of the world.